


Five ways to look after an injured flatmate

by TheWhiteLily



Series: Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2016 [22]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Humour, Injured John, John Being an Idiot, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock is Good, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 00:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7662364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhiteLily/pseuds/TheWhiteLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the first moments after John went down to a bullet, it seemed like Sherlock was worried whether he lived or died. Now, he doesn't seem to care at all... or does he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yeah, he just took off.  He does that.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Watson's Woes July 14th prompt: Rehabilitation/Recovery. Also for the fan_flashworks "Numbers" challenge which, while not as direct a fill as I would have liked, was all my brainstorming was giving me.
> 
> This story is complete, five chapters in all, I'll be posting a new one every day.

“Worth the wound my _arse_ ,” muttered John, surveying the waiting room with narrowed eyes.  
  
He remembered thinking that.  He remembered thinking it with all his heart—the way he’d once thought ‘please, God, let me live'—when he’d seen the way Sherlock had snarled at that counterfeiter who’d grazed John’s leg with a potshot, the look on the self-professed sociopath’s face as he rushed to the place where John had fallen, demanding that he be okay…  
  
It was worth the wound, he’d thought.  Worth it, to see behind the indifferent mask that Sherlock wore over the great heart beneath, the heart that so many people—including Sherlock—appeared to think was a charmingly romantic fantasy of John’s.  
  
Of course, John had thought it was worth the wound _before_ the A &E doctors had spent an hour stitching up the laceration from where the bullet had clipped him, and before they’d issued him with a cane and strict instructions to avoid using the leg as much as possible for at least two weeks to allow the muscle time to heal.  And before John had returned to the waiting room to find it full of wounded and ill and their anxious companions… and no Sherlock.  
  
_Where are you?_ he tapped out in a text message, just in case.  
  
_Busy - SH_  
  
Great.  Well, if Sherlock was in _that_ kind of mood, there was no use trying to pry information out of him.  Certainly no use ringing.  
  
Greg Lestrade, on the other hand, picked up on the third ring.  
  
“John!” he said.  “How are you?  Sherlock said you couldn’t come because you were getting your leg seen to, are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, fine,” said John.  “Just a graze, really.  But ‘couldn’t come’?  Come where?”  
  
“Well, we’ve got another case, don’t we?  No rest for the wicked, I guess.  We’ll have to work through the paperwork for that counterfeiting case and the guy who shot at you after we’ve done our best to get this next one off the street—because whoever’s done this one, it’s not pretty.”  
  
“Oh,” said John.  Of course that was why Sherlock was gone.  For a moment, John indulged in thinking about Sherlock whirling around another crime scene, brilliant and alive and joyful in the way he only was when they were solving a crime.  Adrenaline surged briefly at the idea of joining him… and then died down again as his leg throbbed with pain.  The only place John was going to be able to go was _home_.  To bed.  “All right.  Well, good luck then.”  
  
“Thanks mate,” said Greg, sounding harassed.  “I think we’ll need it for this one.”  
  
John stared at the phone disconsolately, then tucked it into his pocket and took another few, experimental steps.  No, there was no way he could manage the tube like this, not even if he took one of the insulting 'reserved for disabilities' seats that he’d managed to avoid after Afghanistan.  
  
On the other hand, the locum shifts he’d managed to pick up recently had petered out when he’d proved a pretty unreliable source of emergency cover whenever there was a case on—and his army pension check didn’t come in until next week.  There wouldn’t be anything on his card, and his wallet had been empty this morning when he went to grab a protein bar to keep him going for a couple of hours more until they could make it to Garrideb’s house.  
  
Somehow, he was going to have to make the tube work.  
  
He double-checked the billfold of his wallet, just to make sure, and was delighted to find a raggedy looking twenty pound note he didn’t remember tucked between a couple of receipts.  Just enough to cover a cab fare home.  
  
John sighed in relief, the immediate problem taken care of, at least.  
  
Hopefully Sherlock would be able to tell him about the case later.


	2. Soon as we get all this rubbish cleaned out

The cab dropped him off at the kerb and sped away.  John struggled to keep the door open with his hip while he managed to get one foot, the cane, and his other foot through the doorway into the front hall.  The stairs up to his bedroom towered above him ominously.  
  
No.  He couldn’t make it all the way in one go.  Best thing would be to go halfway up, and head inside to watch TV for a while before attempting the second leg.

In the living room, Sherlock was deep in his thinking pose of the day on the couch—the inverted crucifix, John had mentally dubbed this one: legs up the wall, arms along the front of the seats, and head hanging down towards the floor.  
  
Apparently he _had_ been busy though: busy spending the time John was being stitched up and painstakingly making his way home, rearranging the furniture in 221B’s living room to recreate… something.  The towering piles of books and papers that usually interspersed the furniture had been shuffled around, lining up with the desk and the couch in a strangely useless grid pattern.  _Nothing_ was in the same place it had been left that morning, and the only clue appeared to be that the wall under the smilie face was papered with diagrams of rooms populated by boxes and lines in different patterns.  From a crime scene, maybe? A series of crime scenes?  It was hard to tell at that distance, and there was no way John was crossing all the way to the other wall to find out.  
  
Sometimes, though, he wished that Sherlock could just work with a diorama.  
  
“What’s the case?” asked John.  
  
He eyed the winding aisle between the door to the kitchen and his chair—which was still, fortunately for Sherlock’s health, settled comfortably in front of the TV with an unobstructed view—and propped his cane against the kitchen wall.  It’d probably be easier manoeuvring all the way through there by keeping one hand on the furniture.  Although he’d have to keep an eye on things to make sure Sherlock didn’t become inspired again and shift everything around him, leaving him trapped.  
  
“Mmph,” huffed Sherlock, waving a hand without opening his eyes or otherwise changing his posture, apparently oblivious to the social niceties of how-are-you and can-I-get-you-anything.  “You’ve been talking to Lestrade.  A four—not even worth going to the crime scene.  It was obviously the step-son.”  
  
“Right,” said John, as he picked his way across the room.  He was right, it _had_ felt better walking hand over hand along the furniture.  “Well, you can put all this back where it goes in a week or two, once I’ve got rid of the damned cane—for the moment, it’s not so bad like it is.  Although Mrs Hudson’s going to hit the roof when she sees it.”  
  
It was only after John had settled into his chair that he remembered the necessity of fetching the remote control, which… now he looked, wasn’t in its usual spot on the coffee table anyway.  Given the level of disruption in the room, it could well take weeks to track down.  Unfortunately, not a task John was feeling up to at the moment.  His leg was _really_ throbbing now that he had nothing else to focus on to block out the dull, burning ache that he remembered all too well from being shot the first time.  A book probably wasn’t going to cut it.  
  
He shifted, trying in vain to find a better position, and reached behind himself to rearrange the Union Jack cushion, only to find—  
  
“Aha!” he muttered, victorious, and brandished the control at the TV.  Apparently he’d even managed to accidentally leave Doctor Who in the DVD drive.  Brilliant.


	3. I play the violin when I’m thinking.  Would that bother you?

John came awake suddenly, sweaty sheets pinning him to the bed, to the sound of Sherlock playing ‘Ode to a Strangled Cat’ downstairs.  
  
He wrestled the sheets away from where they were pressing on his hurt leg and lay back down, momentarily exhausted by the battle.  

Why Sherlock so rarely played _nicely_ when John was trying to sleep, he would never understand.  Surely, on a statistical level, at some point the bouts of Brahms or Mendelssohn that John knew Sherlock was perfectly capable of would have to coincide with when John was trying to sleep rather than with an impassioned lecture on how John was a complete and utter musical Philistine.  Unless, of course, Sherlock was doing it deliberately to be irritating, which could never be discounted.  
  
Mrs Hudson had obviously come to visit him and left a cup of sympathetic tea and a couple of consolatory biscuits on the bedside table when she'd found him asleep.  It was really very kind of her, because her hip was bad enough in the winter that she barely ever managed to make it all the way up the stairs.  The biscuits were a particular stroke of luck, because now John looked at the clock it was time for his next dose of painkillers, too.  Even with the stairs in the way between himself and the kitchen, he wasn’t supposed to take them on an empty stomach.  
  
By the time he’d downed the biscuits and washed the oxycodone down with the tea—which was miraculously still hot—the sounds from downstairs had transitioned into the haltingly repetitive sounds of composition; tentative phrases which broke off half way through and then restarted from the beginning, each time playing just a little further or just a little differently, before stopping again.

Composing usually meant Sherlock was working through something in his mind, processing an emotion.  Whatever he was writing, it was a beautiful.

As the oxycodone took effect, John fell asleep with a smile, lulled by the faint, lilting strains of the violin.  No, a well-played violin didn’t bother him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All due disclaimers that CaffieneKitty's insistent "Tea and Angry Biscuits" was fresh in my mind while I wrote this, but I've always loved a good transferred epithet. :)


	4. Don’t eat when I’m working.  Digesting slows me down.

John hobbled into the kitchen and poked disconsolately at the loaf of bread on the counter.  At least there _was_ bread, it seemed, but he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in forty-eight hours and he needed to make sure he got _some_ iron and protein if his body was going to heal properly.  
  
“Have you already eaten, Sherlock?” he asked, looking at the dirty plate and empty takeaway containers on the table, crowded around the microscope.  Really, the man could have got something for John, too.  
  
“I did ask if you wanted some,” called Sherlock in response.  “You didn’t answer.”  
  
“I was asleep!” John yelled back, furious.  “I’ve been _shot_ , Sherlock!  I know it wasn't serious, but I’m taking oxycodone!  I’m going to be asleep a _lot_ for the next few days!”  
  
“Mmm, well, there _could_ be leftovers in the fridge,” said Sherlock, sounding dubious.  “Can’t really remember.  Not the bottom shelf, though—those are the spleens.”  
  
Glancing warily at the bottom shelf, John found several containers lined up along the top shelf, and smiled in relief at the sight of one that was  _definitely_ rice, and another—ooh, was that beef korma written on the lid?  John’s favourite.  Sherlock had obviously accidentally over-ordered again.  He sometimes did that at the completion of a case, when the ravenous hunger he’d been ignoring for days caught up with him all at once and exceeded the limits of what any human being could consume in one sitting.  
  
Carefully, John popped open the lid of his chosen container and performed a cautious double-check of the contents.  Sherlock tended to reuse takeaway containers in his experiments, and John had had more than one nasty surprise when he discovered minced liver labelled Dhal or an assorted collection of big toes in vinegar instead of the Pho he’d been saving.  
  
No, it looked safe, and quite distinct from the red-grey jellied bulges lined up in the containers along the bottom shelf.  He was about to close the fridge, in fact, and escape with his prize, when he realised that there was a full, unopened carton of milk gleaming at him from the door.  It made him feel momentarily queasy in a suspicious kind of way.  
  
He was _sure_ they’d been nearly out, before, but…  Ah.  Mrs Hudson again, of course.  
  
Well, Sherlock wasn’t going to do whatever it was he did to make milk disappear to _this_ carton.  Not before John had made himself at least _one_ cup of tea to go with his dinner, using unequivocally uncontaminated milk..


	5. Just this once, dear.  I’m not your housekeeper.

Painfully, laboriously, John made his way down the stairs to Mrs Hudson’s flat.  
  
It was almost a week since the gunshot that had kept him essentially confined to the upper floors, and she’d been making it up the stairs at least a couple of times a day to leave him cups of exquisitely timed tea, placed on his bedside table for when he awoke or left beside his armchair.  He'd managed not to run into the woman herself, which was surprising, but a bit of a relief if he was honest.  

John had always hated being made a big deal over when he was unwell; he'd hated having to acknowledge how weak and incompetent injury made him feel, and he knew from past experience that Mrs Hudson could very quickly drive him up the wall.  He appreciated her efforts this week all the more for what must have been a superhuman effort not to smother him.  
  
Then, this morning—the day after John  _knew_ he had to get his laundry done, but had been unable to find a way to make it work down the stairs to the machine and back up again with a cane _and_ a laundry hamper—he’d gone to delve into his hamper to search out the least offensive garments and begin the process of re-wearing forwards, backwards, inside-out, backwards- _and_ -inside-out, only to discover his hamper empty and his drawer full of clean, fresh-smelling clothing.  
  
The woman was wonderful.  Despite her continued insistence on not being a housekeeper, she _did_ make exceptions.  A _lot_ of exceptions, particularly in times of need.  Exceptions that deserved a personal thank you from _someone_ , at least, given the way Sherlock always took her mothering atrociously for granted.  
  
The timing of said thank you on John’s part, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with the smells of baking that had been emanating from 221A all morning.  
  
Well, perhaps a little.  Well.  It was a long way down the stairs.  Clearly John was going to need some pastry fortification before attempting the even longer journey back up again.  
  
“Oh, John!” said Mrs Hudson, opening the door at his tap and obviously thrilled to see him.  “I’m so glad you’ve managed to make it down for a visit!  I _did_ hope the scones would do the trick.  And Sherlock, too!”  
  
John glanced back to see the detective standing behind him, apparently having followed him down on cat feet.  He’d undoubtedly smelled Mrs Hudson’s scones long before John had.  Possibly he’d deduced them before she’d even retrieved the ingredients from the cupboard.  
  
“Have you been baking, Mrs Hudson?” John demurred politely, as they were both hustled in to her kitchen table, sat down, and supplied with cups of tea and plates.  
  
“You know perfectly well they’re about to come out of the oven,” she scolded.  “And now I’ve managed to lure you bothdownstairs to set my mind at ease, you can take some back up with you.  I’ve been so worried about you, John!  You two will keep picking fights with men with with guns and I don't know what, you were bound to get hurt eventually!  But I just _couldn’t_ make it all the way up those stairs, not with my hip the way it’s been lately.  Sherlock _has_ been looking after you, though, hasn’t he?”  
  
John blinked at her in momentary puzzlement, and then felt a number of puzzle pieces abruptly slide into place in his mind to form a picture.  He gave Sherlock a sideways look.  
  
Sherlock determinedly didn’t look back, his face a study in blankness.  
  
Eliminate the possibilities….  

The sneaky  _bastard_.  
  
“Oh yes, Mrs Hudson, he's been taking _wonderful_ care of me,” John told her, all innocence.  “I didn't like to mention it, of course, but if I hadn’t known Sherlock better, I’d have thought he was practically _fussing_.”  
  
“Sherlock,” she said, warm and motherly and proud as she put down the teapot and wrapped her arms around him where he sat.  “He _is_ such a good boy, isn’t he?”  
  
“Yes, he is,” agreed John sincerely.  
  
Half-hidden by Mrs Hudson’s embrace, hair mussed and his cheek squashed out of shape against her, Sherlock sent John a filthy look that wasn’t entirely convincing.  
  
John just grinned back at him.  He’d been right the first time, obviously.  
  
This was _absolutely_ worth the wound.  And the recovery.  Every moment of it.


End file.
